Three Fulton County residents were recently sentenced to spend at least eight years in prison, nearly a year after their initial arrest in an ongoing local-federal law enforcement initiative that targets large-scale methamphetamine manufacturers and distributors in the region.

According to McDonough County Sheriff Rick VanBrooker, Arlan M. Cox, 49, Brandon W. Alford, 38, and Brandon L. Welker, 34, all of Astoria, were first arrested in June 2012 on federal warrants charging them with conspiracy to manufacture more than 500 grams of meth as part of Operation Saddle Up.

More recently, U.S. District Judge Michael M. Mihm sentenced Cox and Welker to 10 years in prison and Alford to eight.

The three Astoria men make up one-third of a cluster of arrests that were expected to be indicted around the same time a year ago.

Also among the cluster arrested in the drug-related crackdown in late spring 2012 was 32-year-old Astoria man, Jeremiah R. Miller, who was sentenced this month to 20 years in prison for his role in the multi-defendant meth ring.

The Peoria Journal Star last year reported the initial charges then reportedly gave little detail and alleged the 500 grams hadn't likely been the total amount involved, but rather a legal threshold to trigger a possible life sentence.

In June 2012, VanBrooker told media that while some successes, such as indictments made that month and through the previous year, are measurable, others — like the deterrent effect — are not.

“These federal statutes have teeth,” VanBrooker told The Voice a year ago. “These people are going away for a long time. There’s a huge deterrent factor that you cannot measure, along with the crimes they would be committing if they were out on the street.”

Because of the ongoing crackdown involved with Operation Saddle Up, the number of individuals facing drug-related charges in west-central Illinois has likely reached the hundreds.